The mystics of our tradition saw great meaning in the counting of the Omer. In its cycle of 7 days, counted 7 times, they saw a parallel to the sefirot, Divine attributes of Kabbalistic understanding. Each week, then, was dedicated to a particular attribute, and each day of that week focusing on the intersection of 2 Divine attributes. This week, we focus on tiferet: beauty, balance, harmony, heart space.
Today is the 17th day of the Omer.
Tiferet in Tiferet: Beauty in balance, balance in beauty
Happy is the people who know the joyful shout; O LORD, they walk in the light of Your presence.
They rejoice in Your name all day long; they are exalted through Your righteousness.
For You are their strength in which they glory; our horn is exalted through Your favor.
— Psalms 89:16-18
On the “chart” of the Sefirot, the tension between gevurah, strength, and chesed, loving kindness rests just above tiferet—the aspect on which focus this week is meant to bring us into balance. As in many spiritual traditions, we are asked to harness the different aspects of our personality, to use them in concert with one another, to not be too much of one thing or another.
For the mystics, balance is the key to life’s mysteries. Each of the sefirot, the aspects of God, are held in tension with one another. We see the tension between din, justice, and rachamim, compassion. Our job in the world is to hold ourselves in balance, to even out our impulses. Our individual acts, the mystics believe, ripple out into the world, bringing it more into balance. And then, they imagine, this work moves towards the Divine.
Here, the Psalmist celebrates a life in balance with the Divine. Coming on the heels of celebrating strength, we turn to a celebration of balance within tiferet. What are the things in our life, or perhaps more importantly, what are the relationships, that hold us in balance?
— Rabbi Sari Laufer